They Made It Out of Gay

The father of Jewish ‘gay reparative therapy’ had some even worse ideas for making a buck

By Hella Winston for Tablet Magazine

Before 1998, religious proponents of so-called “reparative” therapy for gay men and lesbians were affiliated mostly with evangelical strains of Protestantism and the Mormon Church. But that year, Arthur Goldberg, a self-described “born salesman” and “New York Jewish liberal,” discovered he had a son who was “struggling with homosexuality.” Soon after, Jews Offering New Alternatives to Homosexuality (later changed to “for Healing”), or JONAH, was born. “There was nothing in the Jewish world,” Goldberg said in recent court testimony, by way of explaining his decision to co-found JONAH with Elaine Berk, another Jewish parent of a gay son.

    There were a lot of Christian based organizations. There were some secular based organizations, but there was nothing in the Jewish world. I kind of prayed about it one day and said maybe this is the message God has given me. The reason God has this is he knows I have been a social activist all my life and maybe this is what he wants to lead me to.

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